Well after my wheel refurb and BBK upgrade to C32 AMG calipers and rotors over the weekend I decided this morning to whip out my rear light clusters and and exterior door handles to tint the lights by a process of adding black base coat to standard car lacquer and then apply coats till the desired shade is reached, done this way gives them a high gloss finish while staying translucent and the door handles I wanted to spray high gloss black.

Here's a few pics of the processes:

All masked up and keyed using scotch brite to give the paint something to stick too:

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Handles are painted first with base coat black:

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I then use my mixed lacquer and base coat mix to coat the lights but also to add the gloss finish to the door handles, here the lights have had one coat:

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Here the lights have had a second coat:

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Here' they are refitted:

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And the door handles:

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I'm unsure on the lights I might get another set of clusters and do the same thing but use the body colour red instead of black mixed in with lacquer and see how they turn out

 

I have to say ,you have a good eye, for aesthetics. So simple, but it really stands out!

 

Thanks,

The black tinted lights only stayed like that for a couple of days as I just wasn't happy with them, instead I decided to wet flat them back and redo them the same way but instead use the body colour base coat in the lacquer in place of the black and I am really happy with the results as it looks far better:

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I wrote up about it in this thread and how I got around the problem with colour of the Indicator bulbs:

https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...etter-imo.html

 

I really love what you have done to your xf,but with the rear lights will it still pass mot without reflectors? Keep up the good work, what area of the car are you going to modify next?

 

Yes they will fly through an MOT test as the reflectors still work perfectly as shown here in a picture I've just taken showing even in broad daylight with just the little LED light on my phone they light up the reflector perfectly:

 

The next area I'll work on will probably be the interior silver plastics which I'll probably spray body colour Blaze Red

 

I look forward to that. my car is off the road and I am working my way through things ( very slowly ) compared to you. She is blaze red as well but instead of black I am doing items carbon fibre except the roof and hatch and number plate area as they are going to be gloss black.